In re Choate

8 N.Y. Crim. 1, 24 Abb. N. Cas. 430
CourtCourt Of Oyer And Terminer New York
DecidedMarch 15, 1890
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 8 N.Y. Crim. 1 (In re Choate) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court Of Oyer And Terminer New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Choate, 8 N.Y. Crim. 1, 24 Abb. N. Cas. 430 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1890).

Opinion

Barrett, J.

“It is a duty imposed upon all courts to preserve order in court, and see to it. that its proceedings are not interrupted,” said Judge Mason, in People ex rel. Greeley against the Court of Oyer and Terminer (29 How. 18), “ or that the respect and authority due to the court are not impaired. And the statute to enable the court to discharge this duty, confers the necessary power upon the court.”

In the matter at bar there is no substantial dispute as to the character of the respondent’s act. It was undoubtedly a contempt. The principal question is whether such contempt was committed during the sitting of the court, and in its immediate view and presence. If it was so committed, it is punishable as a criminal contempt, for it certainly tended to interrupt the proceedings and to impair the respect due to the authority of the court. The respondent’s act was not only a contempt, but an exceedingly gross violation of professional propriety. He deliberately prepared for the invasion of the jury room, secreted himself there in advance, and supplied himself with paper upon which to take stenographic notes of what he might hear. He actually took such notes while the jury were deliberating, and although, upon his discovery, he delivered these notes to the court, he refused to promise secrecy, and—notwithstanding our admonition that his conduct was highly improper, and that it was his bounden duty to keep what he had heard to himself—he subsequently published his recollections of the debate. “ All this tended,” to quote the language of Finoh, [5]*5J., in People ex rel. Munsell v. Court of Oyer and Terminer (101 N. Y. 249 ; 4 N. Y.Crim. Rep. 73) “ to east discredit upon the administration of public justice.”

In State v. Doty (32 N. J. Law R. 403) the supreme court of Hew Jersey held that the law directs the complete seclusion of the jury, and that any attempt to invade such .seclusion is illegal and a palpable violation of judicial authority. “ The jury,” said the learned and able Chief Justice Beaslet, cannot be isolated unless the court is prompt to punish those who infringe in the slightest degree the order directing such isolation. I think public policy requires that no one should escape punishment who is found in any respect invading the privacy of the jury room.”

In this State, the statute expressly requires the jury, in criminal cases, while deliberating, to be kept together in some private and convenient place ; and the officers are sworn not to permit any person to speak to or communicate with them, nor to do so themselves, unless it be by order of the court (Code Crim. Pro. § 421). The conduct of the respondent was a deliberate violation of the statute, and of those just principles which, from time immemorial, have been established to secure the independence and impartiality of jurors.

The question remains whether this plain contempt was committed in the immediate view and presence of the court. It certainly was committed during the sitting of the court. The sitting of the court was continuous while the jury was deliberating. There was no adjournment or suspension of the sitting. The judge was actually upon the bench in the court room during the earlier "part of these deliberations. Later on, the judge retired to the judges’ chambers, in the same building and on the same floor with both the court room and the jury room. But the court was at all times in session and remained so until after the rendition of the verdict. The contempt was not committed in the immediate view and presence of the judge. The judge, however, is not the court. A court has been well defined to be an organized [6]*6body, with defined powers, meeting at certain times and places for. the hearing and decision of causes and other matters brought before it, and aided in this, its proper business,, by its proper officers, viz., attorneys and counsel, to present and manage the business, clerks to record and attest its acts, and decisions, and ministerial officers to execute its commands and secure due order in its proceedings.” Burrill's Dictionary.

Lord Coke describes it to be “a place where justice is. judicially administered.” Referring to this definition Mr. Waite (Prac. vol. 1, p. 221) says that the term'”place ”" must be understood figuratively, for a court is properly composed of persons consisting of the judge or judges and other-proper officers, united together in a civil organization and invested by law with the requisite functions for the administration of justice.

This is a correct view of the subject. The court is clearly an organization invested by law with certain functions for the administration of justice. A contempt committed in the immediate view and presence of any constituent part of that organization, during the sitting of the court,, and tending to interrupt the proceedings of such constituent part, is a contempt in the immediate view and presence-of the court. This was expressly held in Bergh’s case (16 Abb. N. S. 284). The particular act there under consideration was the delivery to the grand jury of an aspersive letter-from an unofficial person. This was deemed contemptuous, behavior committed during the sitting of the court. “I think,” said the learned recorder, ”that the term behavior’ may cover the writing and delivery to the grand jury of a contemptuous and insulting letter. It is clear, from the elementary writers, and from what the Court of Appeals implied in the Hackley case (24 N. Y. 78), that the grand jury room is an enlargement of the court room and paid of the-court sitting. Handing to the petit jury, a letter containing-remarks upon the case pending before them, has been at nisi prius adjudged a contempt; the jury for convenience: [7]*7being outside of the court room proper, it is true, but legally and technically, nevertheless, a part of the court sitting; and both the grand and petit jury rooms were merely extensions of the court apartment, and are under equal jurisdiction.”

In Commonwealth v. Crans (3 Pa. L. J. 453) the court said it was clear that a grand jury are as much attached to the court as a petit jury. ... In contemplation of law a grand jury are supposed to be personally present in court; . . . they differ from a petit jury only in this particular—the latter hear both sides of the case, but both receive legal information from the same tribunal.”

Hr. Bapalje, in his work on Contempts, sec. 67, says that the grand jury, being merely an appendage to the court, the refusal by a witness to answer questions put by them is a contempt of the court by whose order the grand jury was impaneled. For this proposition he cites many cases in this and in other Statés, notably People v. Naughton (7 Abb. N. S. 421); People v. Kelly (24 N. Y. 74); and People v. Fancher (4 T. & C. 476).

In People v. Naughton, Mr. Justice Pratt held that the grand jury was a constituent part of the court of oyer and terminer, and that its proceedings were a part of the proceedings of that court (See p. 423).

In People ex rel. Hackley v. Kelly (21 How. 54), the supreme court of this department at General Term held that the grand jury was an adjunct of the court as well as the petit jury. It was there insisted that the commitment was illegal because the contempt did not occur in the presence of the court, but in the grand jury room before the jury as an independent body.

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Related

People v. De Lucia
229 N.E.2d 211 (New York Court of Appeals, 1967)
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61 Misc. 579 (New York County Courts, 1908)
In re Clark
106 S.W. 990 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1907)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
8 N.Y. Crim. 1, 24 Abb. N. Cas. 430, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-choate-nyoytermct-1890.